Disclaimer, ratings, and other legal junk may be perused in the first chapter.
Reviewers: I'm very grateful to everyone who reviewed and everyone who keeps reviewing. I really appreciate hearing your comments, and as I've said to a few of you before, I'm amazed that so many people actually gave this crossover a chance. Once again, thank you for reading!
Author's Notes:
I'm trying to keep the chapters short (for my standards, that is), but there's so much I want to write that the chapters keep getting longer. ^_^;; Oh well. I hope it's worth it. Enjoy!
~ Dark Rune
-= Level Four: Elevator Down =-
Echizen, whose senses had always been top-notch, was the first to hear something amiss. He stood, ignoring the rest of his teammates who were still arguing about whether or not Momoshiro did, in fact, lie to poor Kawamura about not having any aces in his hand. Of course, Oishi had to step in as the peacemaker, so he put off Echizen's alarming behavior until after he pried Momoshiro out of Kikumaru's choke hold.
After restraining the still-shouting Kikumaru, Oishi put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, and the shrill noise instantly silenced the other tennis players.
"Is something wrong, Echizen?" Oishi asked, releasing Kikumaru and rising to his feet. From their position on the floor, the rest of the regulars looked up at him, then at Echizen, bewildered.
"Do you hear that?" Echizen asked seriously, pulling his cap lower over his face.
Oishi frowned. Within a few seconds, the sound grew more audible, and fear struck the hearts of the tennis players as the animalistic shriek grew louder and louder; whatever was making the horrible noise was drawing near. Finally, when the scream was almost too loud to bear, the regulars scrambled to their feet.
"What *is* that?" Momoshiro whispered, his racket already in Dunk Smash position. No one needed to answer.
The locker room door swung open, slamming violently against the wall and causing the shelves to shudder and pieces of the ceiling tiles to rain on the startled tennis players.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" shrieked Kaidoh Kaoru, sweating, red-faced, and breathing heavily, as he burst into the room, his beady eyes wide and unmistakably full of fear.
"KAIDOH!?" the team shouted in unified disbelief as Kaidoh stumbled dazedly into their midst. He swayed for a moment, almost as if he was playing a tennis game, but he was shivering.
"F-F-F-F-F-F-..." he stammered, obviously numb with shock. He fell forward.
Oishi, being the alert and perpetually worried mother hen of the group, reacted first, catching Kaidoh before the younger man could hit the floor, and in the next instant, everyone had crowded around the traumatized Viper. Each tennis player was worried and secretly fearing what it was that had reduced the notoriously badass Kaidoh to a sputtering, white-faced mass of jelly.
"Oi, Snake," Momoshiro nudged his rival in the shoulder, looking more concerned than he had ever been in his life. "What's the matter with you?"
Kaidoh was quaking in Oishi's arms. "F-F-F-F-F-..."
"Give him some air," Oishi commanded as he laid Kaidoh down on the floor, and the other regulars practically leaped a half-step backwards at the captain's order. "Momoshiro, get some water."
"Hai," Momoshiro saluted, and he would have fetched the closest water bottle if Inui hadn't stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"No. This method will be 134% more effective in revitalizing an unfocused mind," Inui mumbled seriously, holding up a bottle with a familiar, foreboding piece of paper taped to it. "It instantaneously activates the human body's basest survival instincts."
Momoshiro grinned broadly. "I trust your data," he said with glee, and he accepted the bottle containing Inui's latest concoction. The other regulars gasped.
"S-s-surely you..." Kawamura stuttered. "You can't be serious..."
"We're trying to revive him, not kill him!" Kikumaru added worriedly.
Although Inui's juice was not a punishment he wished to inflict on anyone, Oishi decided it was necessary in Kaidoh's case. "Good thinking," Oishi praised, grabbing the bottle from Momoshiro, whose face fell when he realized he wouldn't be the one to poison his immobilized rival. Oishi took a deep breath and turned back to the fallen tennis player. "All right, Kaidoh. You'd better get up or face the consequences. This is Inui's Super Special Deluxe Juice Remix Mach 5--"
"Seven," coughed Inui.
"--Mach 7," Oishi corrected, chills running down his spine, "and if you don't get up on your own, I'm afraid you'll have to suffer."
Kaidoh remained frozen, wide eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Oishi cringed guiltily as he put the bottle to Kaidoh's lips, and everyone, except Inui, flinched and turned away, unable to witness the horrifying scene. Even Momoshiro looked queasy.
"Forgive me," Oishi murmured, closing his eyes. Around him, the other tennis regulars prayed silently to whatever deities they worshipped. Forcing someone innocent to drink Inui's vegetable juice was vile. It was unforgivable. It was detestable. And it worked like a charm.
As soon as the liquid flowed from the bottle, Kaidoh screamed horrifically again, but there was a reassuring measure of awareness in his eyes as he gasped for water. Kawamura, who had been prepared for Kaidoh's reaction, tossed the flailing man a bottle of water, and Kaidoh gratefully chugged its contents.
"You're going to be all right," Oishi said, sighing as he patted Kaidoh on the back. "Just drink, and take a deep breath, and tell us what happened."
Kaidoh carelessly flung the water bottle away, breathing hard and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then he looked up and hissed at Oishi.
"I've never heard anyone scream like that before," Momoshiro taunted half-heartedly. "You wanna tell us what happened, Viper?"
Kaidoh leaned forward, burying his beet-red face in his arms. "Iie."
Oishi sighed again. "It's all right if you don't want to talk about it now. We can discuss this after Fuji gets here."
"Iie!" Kaidoh repeated more fervently.
Oishi frowned, noticing that the back of Kaidoh's neck got even redder at the mention of Fuji's name. How odd...
"Kaidoh," Oishi began thoughtfully, "something happened to you while you were running, and I think it might have something to do with Fuji. Is that right?"
Kaidoh's face was practically glowing at this point, so it was obvious that Oishi's guess was on the mark.
"Will you tell us where he is, Kaidoh-senpai?" Echizen interrupted, and his laid-back self-confidence made his question sound more like an order than a request. "He's holding up practice."
"I..." Kaidoh swallowed hard. "I don't think Fuji-senpai will show up for practice today."
"Why not?" Oishi inquired.
"Because," Kaidoh spoke with difficulty, "I saw him in the woods."
"We'll just send one of the freshmen to get him, then," Kikumaru said cheerily, and he was about to leave when Kaidoh flew to his feet and grabbed Kikumaru by the collar, much to everyone's astonishment.
"IYAAA!!!" Kaidoh cried, jerking Kikumaru backwards by his shirt. "DON'T DO IT!!! They'll be TAINTED! For the love of all that is GOOD and HOLY, SPARE THE INNOCENTS!"
"Calm down!" Oishi pulled Kaidoh off his partner, and Kikumaru gasped for air as he leaned against a wall, trembling. "Kaidoh, what, exactly, did you see?"
"I... I saw nothing," Kaidoh answered, red-faced and shaking just as badly as Kikumaru, when Oishi let him go. "I just... heard..." He hesitated, swallowing hard again.
"Heard what?" everyone urged.
Kaidoh took a deep breath. "Fuji-senpai was with Yuumura-senpai, and they seemed to be... enjoying each other's company... in the woods. I didn't see anything, but... I heard them talking about... well..." Kaidoh blushed.
"About?" Echizen insisted, not noticing that everyone else had pretty much guessed what Kaidoh had stumbled upon, and that everyone else was promptly turning greenish red.
Kaidoh bravely tried to finish his tale in a rush. "They were talking about the size of his--"
"Don't SAY it! We get the point!" Oishi yelled abruptly, leading the others in a group tackle aimed to clamp Kaidoh's mouth shut. Unfortunately, Kaidoh, even though he was Kaidoh, crumpled under the weight of all the tennis players who had jumped him, making Oishi regret their rash actions. Everyone would be REALLY sore today, if the players' anguished groaning and contagious inability to move were any indication.
Echizen merely stood where he was, clueless, and he looked up at Inui, the only regular who had not sacrificed his dignity by tackling Kaidoh like a barbarian.
"They didn't let him finish his sentence," Echizen stated blandly. "What's with everyone today? So what if Fuji-senpai is talking to a girl?"
Inui was furiously scrawling some obscure notes and oddly misshapen diagrams in a book clearly marked 'Fuji's Indiscretions #1', but he spoke to Echizen mid-scribble anyway. "The chance of Fuji showing up to practice has just plummeted to a record low of 0.00002%. The likelihood that he will continue to come to practice this week has also reached a record low of 4.7%."
"What makes you think that?" Echizen asked, looking confused as to how anyone could miss tennis practice without a good reason--like paralysis or death. Inui merely stopped writing and fixed his ominous gaze at Echizen for a minute.
"What?" the vice-captain frowned, staring back at Inui.
"Knowing your father's fixation on women, a latent characteristic which you most likely inherited," Inui muttered, "if you get around to doing with Ryuzaki Sakuno what Fuji is doing with Yuumura, you would quit tennis for approximately 34 days."
"What are you talking about? I'm nothing like... like..." Echizen abruptly stiffened, his eyes widening in belated understanding. "I... I'm... I'm going out for some fresh air. I'll be back."
Then, after carefully stepping over the pile of his semi-conscious senpais, Echizen strode out of the locker room, blushing hotly.
After Inui untangled the mess of tennis players simply by unscrewing the cap off a bottle of Penal-Tea(TM), the team was so jumpy that Oishi could *feel* everyone's charged emotions cackling in the stale locker room air. It was an unfamiliar sensation, because except for the time everyone thought Tezuka might be dating someone (which turned out to be a horrible, horrible misunderstanding involving Fuji's sister, several parts of a fried chicken, and Inui's abysmal phone service), the team had never been so tense. Of course, the situation now was decidedly worse because Fuji seemed to be doing... unspeakable... things... with the new girl.
Oishi shook his head. It simply boggled the mind.
Normally, Oishi would not have intruded in anyone's personal business, but the mental state of the team was at stake. As the captain, Oishi was responsible for keeping everyone healthy, both physically and mentally, and the traumatizing image of a bad Fuji would be too much to handle.
What would Tezuka do? Oishi wondered. How could Seigaku possibly win Nationals now, knowing that their current number one singles player was... well...
"Still missing, huh?" Echizen's voice cut through the thick silence, and all the regulars sitting in the locker room looked up in surprise as the vice-captain returned. "Oishi-senpai, it's irresponsible to hold up practice just for one player. Regardless of who he is, the rest of the team can't afford to wait," Echizen stated coolly. "The non-regulars were just standing around outside so I made them run a hundred laps. Ryuzaki-sensei isn't here yet either so we really need to move. *Now*."
Sometimes, Echizen's uncanny likeness to Tezuka still blindsided Oishi. If he wanted Tezuka's opinion, he really never needed to look further than the youngest regular on the team. Oishi smiled ruefully. "Echizen... You're right. Fuji probably won't come to practice today, so there's no point in waiting." He turned back to the other regulars with newfound determination. "All right, everyone! Let's go."
Silence.
"Let's GO," Oishi repeated more firmly, and the regulars began to move, sluggishly, still in varying states of distress. As the tennis players trudged out of the locker room, Oishi hung back until he and Inui were the only ones remaining. "Please tell me you've got a plan," Oishi pleaded, when everyone was safely out of earshot.
Inui merely closed his latest notebook and hummed in his soothing baritone voice, "I'm afraid this situation has escalated far too quickly above my expectations. There is only one plan that we can put in motion."
Oishi gasped. "Y-you mean... but... do we *have* to? There must be some other way..."
"I'm afraid it has come down to this," Inui spoke, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose in a frighteningly calm manner. "We must implement Seigaku Tennis Club's Secret Contingency Plan Zeta: Code Orange."
Oishi swallowed hard, his spine tingling. "A videophone conference with Tezuka?"
"My house. Eight o'clock. Be there."
Oishi grimaced. But at the very least, it wasn't Code Red.
Yet.
"Well, I guess I'll have to miss tennis practice today," Syusuke said, smiling with his eyes closed.
Kirika shrugged. "Gomen. I know how much you wanted to play."
"It's no problem," he shook his head, offering his arm to support her as they started walking back towards the courts to retrieve their bags. "Properly treating your injury at home is more important than playing a game."
Clutching his upper left arm, Kirika limped forward at Syusuke's laid-back pace, but she avoided looking at his face. He obviously didn't mean what he said; she could tell that he would rather be playing tennis than babysitting her. "Gomen," she whispered again, wincing at the sharp pain lancing through her leg.
The only positive thing about killing Soldats assassins was that Soldats always cleaned up after themselves. In the time she'd been fighting them, Kirika had never needed to cover her deadly trail because Soldats took great pains to hide their existence from the general public. In a few hours, the assassins' dead bodies would probably be gone and the forest swept clean of all traces of the gunfight.
But their secrecy also made it difficult to track the Soldats leaders down. Kirika had never actually met any of them in person since her orders came through her computer. The Fuji family was the highest ranking family she knew in Soldats, and that was only because they had been her mission. The old men in power still remained nameless and faceless to her, so she wondered how much information Syusuke had been privy to before the Fuji family's rebellion.
In truth, the attacks today disturbed Kirika. She had expected Soldats to spy on Syusuke, of course, and she had expected Soldats to try to kill her long before she arrived at school, so the assassination attempts did not quite follow impeccable Soldats logic.
Could 'Nee-san have done something drastic in Kyoto already? Kirika wondered. Could Soldats have found the person who held the evidence the Fujis had against Soldats? Once the evidence-keeper was eliminated, Soldats would no longer need to keep their distance from Syusuke. Those were the only logical reasons for the attacks today; nothing else made sense because Syusuke had been safe from overt attacks before Kirika's arrival. Kirika's new relation to Syusuke, if anything, should have piqued Soldats' curiosity just as 'Nee-san had planned, instead of prompting such blatant attacks.
"You should give 'Nee-san a call when we get home," Kirika said, as the two of them walked next to the lake.
Syusuke smiled. "Of course. She owes me an explanation."
"I doubt she'll reveal her plans to you, but she might have a few theories of her own about what's going on here," Kirika murmured, stumbling when more pain shot through her leg like a lightning bolt, and she leaned against Syusuke as much as she dared.
He didn't seem to mind her dependence on him, but he didn't show concern for her predicament either. "You mean you're not entirely sure about what's going on?"
"These attacks feel strange," she replied honestly. "If assassins keep coming after today, Soldats must be truly worried about something other than the Fuji family. 'Nee-san has only been gone a day, so she couldn't possibly have breached their defenses so critically already."
"It's almost as if this wasn't Soldats' doing," Syusuke said lightly. "Perhaps a jealous female student hired some people to kill you, Kirika-chan."
Kirika glanced up at him, stunned. "Syusuke-kun..."
He brushed off her seriousness with a smile. "Anyway, wasn't that a lovely stroll, Yuumura-chan? I'm sorry you had to trip over that log. My negligence caused your injury."
"I... It's all right, Fuji-kun," she smiled weakly, hearing the change in his tone and understanding that they were close enough to the tennis courts to be overheard by a stray freshman. They would have to save this discussion for later; Syusuke looked as if he wished to avoid talking about Soldats altogether.
They found their belongings in the bushes where they had dropped them, and, without a word, Syusuke shouldered both their bags, surprising Kirika. She had forgotten how Syusuke liked performing random chivalrous acts like that. As they walked away from the courts, Syusuke dug into his bag and pulled out his cell phone, and Kirika didn't bother to ask who he was calling because his end of the conversation said it all.
"Hello," Syusuke began with perfected cheerfulness, "this is Fuji... Oh? You're still in your office? Well... Yes, practice started a half hour ago..."
Kirika looked away in disgust. Syusuke was so good at deceiving others that his lines flowed without thought. He really knew how to sell his lies: start with the appropriate level of surprise, inject the proper amount of false sympathy here, place a pause for maximum effect there, and top off the story with guilt-ridden apologies for flavoring. Next to swordplay, deception had been Syusuke's deadliest art, and it had been the true source of his strength in Soldats. Kirika remembered how he had tried to teach her to act, but she just couldn't understand the complexities of human behavior back then. She still didn't understand human nature now, but Syusuke had mastered his craft years ago.
"I don't know," Syusuke continued lying happily into his phone, oblivious to Kirika's discomfort. "Yuumura-chan sprained her ankle so I can't make it today... No... I'm taking her home right now... Is that... Yes. Thank you very much... I will... Goodbye."
When he hung up, Kirika bit her bottom lip as they walked out the high school gates. Syusuke's ability to lie honestly irritated her. She needed to trust him until the end of the mission, but it was difficult to have faith in an accomplished actor whose actions often contradicted his words. As uncomfortable as she was next to him, however, she had to lean on him. The Fuji mansion was only a few blocks from the school, so it would take them only a few minutes to get there, but those few minutes were torture on her injured leg.
As they walked in contemplative silence, Kirika felt Syusuke becoming tenser. Every few seconds, she looked up at him, forgetting her own pain out of curiosity as to why his smile grew more strained with each passing minute--almost as if he didn't want to go home.
He must be dreading walking home like this every day for three weeks, Kirika thought when they stopped at last in front of the Fuji residence. After all, the peace he'd enjoyed in the last five years would most certainly be ruined.
"I take it you've already moved your belongings into your old room," Syusuke said as he entered the code to open the mansion's gates.
Kirika blinked at him, surprised that he would want to make small talk. Limping up the driveway, she answered cautiously, "Yes, but I didn't bring much. You don't have to worry about cleaning up after I'm gone."
Syusuke shot her a strange look before he inserted the key into the front door and unlocked it. As soon as they entered the house and he shut the door, he dropped the bags on the carpeted floor, coldly unlatching Kirika from his arm as they slipped off their shoes. Wordlessly, he stormed towards the living room to pick up the cordless telephone receiver there. "Kirika-chan," he said, his back to her as he dialed, "you know where the first aid kit is. Go ahead and treat yourself. I need to talk to my sister."
Kirika nodded, wishing that he would at least turn and spare her a glance. She lingered in the doorway connecting the living room to the study, watching him and willing him to acknowledge her existence, but he remained still, facing away from her.
She felt absurdly hollow. As she went inside the study to get the first aid kit, she shook her head, furious at herself for expecting so much from him so early in this strange partnership. She really shouldn't have expected anything at all. Everything was an act with Syusuke, and no matter how kind he appeared to her sometimes, no matter what good deeds he performed for her, she couldn't afford to forget that he was always acting. Besides, even though she was giving her life to him, she shouldn't expect kindness or pity in return. When all was said and done, Syusuke was still a Fuji, and ruthlessness still flowed in his blood.
He was as unforgiving as he had ever been.
With the kit in her hands, Kirika sat in an armchair in the study, silently observing Syusuke's tense back while tearing opening the necessary medical supplies. Syusuke's voice was low, but its edge was razor sharp, his accusations and fury strongly directed at Yumiko. 'Nee-san seemed to be holding her ground in the discussion, however, judging from the way Syusuke's voice shook and intensified with ever-increasing impatience.
As she undid the bandages on her leg and replaced them with clean ones, Kirika realized that she missed Mireille very, very dearly. Perhaps Mireille had spoiled her with too much kindness over the past year, but Kirika had forgotten how difficult life was without a sympathetic soul to lean on. When Kirika was done patching herself up, she escaped upstairs to her room to change into casual clothing, and when she came back down, she ducked into the dining room to give Syusuke more privacy. Fifteen minutes later, his arguments ceased, and a tense minute after that, Syusuke finally strode into the dining room, noticeably red-faced and forcing a smile even as he removed his school uniform jacket.
"What did 'Nee-san say?" Kirika inquired, hesitantly meeting his gaze.
His smile was bitter. "Nothing you didn't already tell me."
"Did she expect the assassination attempts on you today and simply neglect to warn us?"
Syusuke's smile withered. "No. As you said, 'Nee-san believed spies would be sent after me, but she didn't expect Soldats to make the first move against us. She thinks something went wrong somewhere else, and Soldats might be panicking as a result."
Kirika frowned. Yumiko-nee's opinion was not something to be taken lightly. "Does she have any idea about what that 'something else' might be?
Syusuke sighed, folding his arms in front of Kirika, who was leaning against the spotless dining table. "She didn't know. But she wanted you to consider the possibility that someone else might be behind these attacks. It could be a more daring Soldats leader 'Nee-san didn't know about."
"That doesn't give us much to work with, does it?" Kirika said, worried. "What else did she tell you?"
"Absolutely nothing about Kyoto," he admitted. "I'm beginning to think that 'Nee-san is as gleefully sadistic towards me as I am towards Yuuta..."
Knowing Yumiko's manipulative tendencies, and knowing Syusuke's aversion to being manipulated, Kirika carefully refrained from agreeing with his statement.
"Speaking of Yuuta..." His cheerful mask returned when he glanced out the window. "Did you know he had a ridiculously huge crush on you, Kirika-chan?" he asked nonchalantly as he relaxed against the dining table next to her.
"Oh... he did?" Kirika stared, flushing. "But... what does that have to do with anything?"
Syusuke kept smiling as he turned to her. "Among other things, 'Nee-san manipulated Yuuta into visiting home today, telling him there was a surprise waiting."
"Really?" Kirika frowned, as Syusuke seemed to lean even closer to her. "When will he get here?"
Syusuke's smile widened. "Don't look, but he's already here. He's actually watching us just outside the window."
Pinned by his steely gaze, Kirika couldn't turn around. "Why don't we go greet him, then?" she suggested awkwardly, shifting to leave, but Syusuke quickly pivoted and stood in front of her, trapping her against the table. He leaned forward, his arms positioned on either side of her, his body scant centimeters away from hers and moving closer. She resisted the urge to break his neck, gripping the edge of the table with her hands to prevent them from doing any instinctive damage to her client. "What are you doing, Syusuke-kun?"
His eyes opened. From this distance, Kirika couldn't miss the mischief dancing in his cobalt gaze, but then she saw a spark of seriousness underneath his humor.
"Have you ever kissed anyone before, Kirika-chan?" he asked, his voice low and soothing, his tone trivial.
Her eyes widened. "E-excuse me?"
"I asked if you've ever kissed anyone before," he repeated patiently.
She found herself answering with the truth in spite of her embarrassment. "N-no."
"I haven't either," he confessed amiably. "We should practice then, don't you think?"
She froze. "What?"
"We should practice," he repeated, his voice laced with the kind of patronizing patience reserved for imbeciles. "Kissing, I mean."
Unable to find an intelligent response to convey her shock, Kirika uttered one word. "Why?"
"We're betrothed, and people are going to expect this kind of behavior from us," Syusuke explained, his smile becoming less kind and much more cruel. "We need to be convincing. We can't be caught off guard not knowing these things."
"But... I was..." Kirika stopped talking, realizing that she had no right to tell Syusuke anything. She couldn't tell him that she wanted to do this only with the right man, someone who could see into her soul and accept it completely, broken as it was, without disgust or fear or hatred. But what was the likelihood that she would find someone like that in the remaining weeks of her life?
Besides, her personal feelings had no business here. Syusuke was her employer. He owned her soul and would decide her fate, and he could do whatever he damn well pleased.
"For the good of the mission, let's see if we can convince Yuuta, ne?" Syusuke said happily, and with that, he leaned down and captured her lips brutally with his.
Losing herself in the kiss, Kirika managed not to cry.
Sixteen-year-old Fuji Yuuta scowled. It was his habit to scowl at anything and anyone family-related, because as far as he could remember, his family always seemed to enjoy making him suffer, especially his annoying older brother. Often, before his parents had died, Yuuta had felt out of place in his family, but while he had the distinct impression that everyone treated him differently, he wasn't entirely sure how. Syusuke and Yumiko had only changed their attitudes after the car accident that had claimed their parents' lives, and even then, they still treated him as if he were some sheltered baby.
Yuuta fumed. He was only younger than Syusuke by a year, so why the hell did they treat Syusuke with more respect?
It *had* to be that damned talent of his. Syusuke was just more talented, more dedicated, more studious, more polite, and pretty much better at every other damn thing, including school, including sports, including getting along with people, including... ugh.
Damn it all.
His freaky brother was *perfect*.
Yuuta scowled as he got off the bus only a few blocks from the house. 'Nee-san had dropped by St. Rudolph that morning and practically ordered him to visit Syusuke today, because she was leaving early for Kyoto and she thought Yuuta needed to spend quality time with his brother. Of course, quality time with ManipulativeBastard!Syusuke wouldn't have convinced Yuuta to go within a kilometer of the mansion, so 'Nee-san had mentioned something about a surprise. Eventually, Yuuta's curiosity won over his loathing of Syusuke, but Yuuta didn't plan to stay very long in the presence of the perfect prodigy. For all Yuuta cared, Syusuke could have the entire house to himself during the next three weeks and wreck it, as long as the older Fuji brother stayed the hell away from Yuuta.
Aniki's a lucky bastard though, Yuuta thought grudgingly. The dorms at St. Rudolph weren't tiny, but compared to the cavernous Fuji mansion, Yuuta's room at school was a coffin. He growled, shoving his hands in his pockets as he arrived at the house gates. Yuuta mechanically punched in the security code and went inside, all the while grumbling about the injustice that was his life, but he ground to a halt as he stood in the driveway. The windows were, strangely enough, open, and he could actually see into the dining room. What he saw lifted his spirits tremendously.
"Yuumura-san!" Yuuta cried, a happy smile spreading across his face when he spied the young woman's familiar face. About six years ago, Yuumura-san, the daughter of some family friends, had lived in the Fuji mansion as an exchange student from a junior high school in Kyoto. Yuuta had grown close to the shy girl, and Yuuta liked her a lot. As far as he could understand, she was only shy around him because she liked him back and was too modest to admit it in front of his family. At any rate, Yuumura-san was the only person close enough to be considered family whom Yuuta did not intensely dislike at some point in his lifetime, so, overjoyed, he rushed to open the front door, casting excited glances through the window.
Then something else happened.
Yuuta's smile vanished.
His older brother now entered the dining room, grinning as usual, and he leaned against the table next to Yuumura-san. For a few moments, Syusuke and Yuumura-san seemed to be talking seriously about something, which worried Yuuta beyond reason.
What the hell is going on? Yuuta thought, ignoring the front door completely in his fascination with the events unfolding in the dining room. Why isn't Aniki at tennis practice?
Yuumura-san looked as if she was about to move away, but then in the blink of an eye, Syusuke was in front of her, blocking her way out, standing much too close for Yuuta's peace of mind. Syusuke said something, and then he leaned forward... forward...
He was...
He...
"Aniki... you *bastard*!"
Yuuta's heart almost stopped, and his eyes widened in rage and in despair as Syusuke leaned down and kissed Yuumura-san. Yuuta clenched his fists, his face red, and he watched in horror as the kiss continued, showing no signs of ending any time soon. Unable to control himself, Yuuta finally flung open the front door and barged into the house with the chilling intent to kill.
That BASTARD! That annoying, smiling, manipulative BASTARD! Syusuke KNEW how much Yuuta liked Yumuura-san! Why did HE always get everything to go HIS way? Yuumura-san was YUUTA'S territory!
DAMN SYUSUKE!
HE WAS DOING IT ON PURPOSE! That stupid older brother of his was kissing Yuumura-san out of spite! Syusuke must have KNOWN he was visiting today, and he must have skipped tennis practice just so he could make his move on Yuumura-san first! He KNEW Yuumura-san was the love of Yuuta's life! HOW *DARE* HE!!!
Slamming the front door behind him, Yuuta stomped towards the dining room but froze in the doorway when he saw two faces staring at him in surprise.
"Yuuta!" Syusuke smiled at him, opening his eyes, but he didn't move from his obviously comfortable position draped over Yuumura-san. "I didn't know you were home."
"Yuuta-kun," Kirika greeted with a blush, and Yuuta's face fell, his hopes shattering in an instant.
No... She actually... she actually looked happy. Was she happy to be with his stupid aniki? What if... what if she actually liked him!?
All of Yuuta's hopes were dashed the moment Syusuke and Yuumura-san pulled further apart but kept their hands linked. He groaned inwardly; there was no more reason to doubt the legitimacy of their relationship if they were already at the hand-holding stage.
Damn his stupid brother...
"Y-Yuumura-san, welcome back," Yuuta greeted miserably, unclenching his fists, his shoulders drooping even as his brother and Yuumura-san both gave him hugs. He returned their embraces weakly.
"We have big news," Syusuke announced, his smile much more genuine than anything Yuuta could even imagine at this point.
"What is it?" Yuuta croaked, eyeing their linked hands with extreme disgust and discomfort. "Are you staying very long, Yuumura-san? I'd... I'd like to spend time with you... I can move back here and commute to St. Rudolph..."
Yuumura-san's serene gaze bestowed upon his own unworthy face nearly made Yuuta melt with bitter joy. "I think it would be best if Syusuke-kun explains the situation," Yuumura-san said in her soft, gentle voice.
"And that is?" Yuuta smiled at her, then glowered at his older brother, then directed his affection back at her again. Hopefully she would notice his undying love for her and dump his stupid brother. Hopefully.
"We're engaged," grinned Syusuke, pulling the blushing Yuumura-san easily into a warm hug.
Kill me. Kill me now, Yuuta thought, horrified.
For a full minute, Yuuta stared dumbly at his older brother and the beloved Yuumura-san, his jaw hanging open and his eyes glazed with grief. It wasn't that he wanted to appear stupid in front of the girl of his dreams; it was just that most activity in his brain had ceased.
Neither Syusuke nor Yuumura-san feigned surprise when Yuuta finally passed out.
"He's gotten heavy," Syusuke commented, carelessly dumping Yuuta's unconscious form on the longest couch.
Kirika watched her 'fiance' with an emotionless expression. "He's taller than you now," she observed.
Syusuke beamed. "Yes, he is, isn't he? But only by a few centimeters. I'm not *that* short."
Kirika folded her arms across her chest, trying not to let Syusuke know how shaken she was from the show they had put on for Yuuta. Syusuke's revenge against her was cruel. He knew her well enough to understand how relationships mattered to her, how sacred and fleeting displays of emotion were to her. He knew her well enough to defile the things she deemed most precious.
He made her sick.
"I'm surprised at how well our act worked," Syusuke grinned, shooting her a pleased look that was nowhere near genuine. "Yuuta's a bit gullible, though, so I think we need to practice even more in order to deceive truly observant people like Inui, ne, Kirika-chan?"
She shrugged, turning away from him and staring out the window.
"Kirika-chan, I asked you a question," he stated in a level tone, but she could hear his smile, and it clashed with the coldness of his words. "Answer me."
"Yes," she replied dutifully, her fingers digging into her upper arms with a viciousness she wished she could direct at Syusuke. "I think I'll go outside for a while."
"Yuuta will probably be asleep for a while, so go ahead," Syusuke said, sitting comfortably on an armchair adjacent to the couch, and Kirika glared at him before stalking out the door.
She knew she shouldn't wander off the premises because her client and his brother would be vulnerable if she strayed too far, but she desperately needed to get away. Kirika justified her leaving the house by looking around for suspicious people on the street. She always vented her frustrations by making herself useful, whether it was through painting or protecting someone, and this was as good an opportunity as any.
Kirika walked quietly down the driveway and stopped next to the front gates, where she leaned casually against the wall and glanced outside over her shoulder. From her vantage point just within the mansion walls, there was virtually no one in sight, but Soldats assassins knew better than to hang around in broad daylight. They would be hiding in the trees, or somewhere concealed high above the ground, in places where people wouldn't normally look. Kirika frowned when she spotted a black sedan parked a short distance away across the street, containing what appeared to be two people deep in conversation.
Surely they can't be Soldats, Kirika thought before stepping away from the gates, slipping into the shadows offered by the trees. She needed to find out who those men were, fast. Her decision made, Kirika took off running swiftly along the mansion's perimeter, one hand against the stone wall surrounding the residence to steady herself.
Perhaps those men were Yuuta's bodyguards. Although they seemed careless sitting out in the open, they certainly looked the part.
As soon as she judged she was a safe distance from the car, Kirika scaled the wall next to a tree and perched herself on a low branch extending over the wall. She reached for her gun tucked into the back of her jeans, all the while observing the car from behind. Those men were really far too obvious to be professional, but their car, which was known to be used often by Soldats, drew suspicion, especially parked so close to the Fuji residence.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, she thought. Maybe I'm too worked up over what Syusuke did.
Kirika flushed at the memory. At this point, she didn't know what to think. When she'd accepted the mission, she had expected to put up an act, but she didn't think they'd go as far as kissing--not that Syusuke was a bad kisser or anything.
Kirika's face grew even warmer. Of course, how would she know anything about that? How could *he*?
The powerful urge to just strangle Syusuke returned, and she shook her head. Thinking about killing her current employer really wasn't helping. As the minutes passed, Kirika grew impatient and fidgety, and her uncomfortable feelings about Syusuke increased her annoyance even more. She had a bad feeling about the car, and usually her hunches proved correct. Unfortunately, in one unexpected move, Syusuke had pounded her confidence into the ground, made her question her judgments. How could she protect him if he pulled any more embarrassing stunts like that?
Kirika was about to go for a closer look at the car when she saw Syusuke emerge from the house, a smile on his face as he strolled down the path to the front gates. Kirika automatically ducked back amongst the leaves. He had changed into casual clothes, and with his hands shoved into his pockets, Syusuke ambled on outside, heading leisurely towards the parked car. Even from that distance, however, Kirika noticed the strain in his smile; he was definitely not out for fun. In fact...
Kirika's eyes widened when she spotted the unnatural bulge under Syusuke's shirt.
A weapon?
Her heart now racing, Kirika leaped down from the tree and dashed towards the gate, completely ignoring the injury she was aggravating in her leg. She had to stop Syusuke. He wasn't ready for a fight, and if those men in the car were assassins, they would have teammates in the surrounding area. Syusuke *knew* that basic rule. What was wrong with him? Those men in the car could run over him, and that would be just the accident Soldats was looking for to get rid of the Fuji threat forever.
Kirika tried not to panic when she reached the front gates and ran out on the sidewalk. Syusuke was crossing the street now, coming much too close to the car for Kirika's comfort.
She had to stop him. If she had to make herself a target, then so be it.
"Syusuke-kun!" she shouted, in a tone that she hoped sounded sort of like a wife sweetly calling out to her husband.
Standing in the middle of the quiet street, Syusuke turned, surprise and something disconcertingly close to anger in his features. "Kirika-chan," he responded with a rehearsed smile. "Is something wrong?"
"Will you help me with something in the kitchen?" she asked innocently, yet even as she spoke, she was frantically scanning the area for possible hiding places for more assassins. Syusuke wouldn't know what hit him if the assassins were ordered to ignore the Fuji will and start shooting. Kirika paled when she saw the two men in the car staring at Syusuke strangely.
Syusuke started walking back, and although he was smiling, his open eyes held contrasting emotions. "Kirika-chan," he said softly, just as he reached her side. His hand gripped her upper arm in a swift move that caught Kirika off guard, eliciting a pained gasp from her. His smile showed no remorse. "What do you think you're doing out--"
Syusuke never finished his sentence.
In the next instant, the car exploded.
-= End Chapter Four =-
Chapter Started: August 3, 2003
Chapter Finished: September 2, 2003
About the Dark Side:
Fuji's defining moment for me [minor spoilers ahead] was in the practice episode in which Inui decided that the last to cross the finish line would drink his Super Deluxe Whatever Juice. As the regulars raced around the courts, someone (Kikumaru?) pointed out that if Fuji liked Inui's special mix, why was he trying so hard? To this, Fuji replied, "I like to see people suffer even more."
After my mad-happy screaming like a deluded fangirl, my brain latched on to the potential of Fuji's dark side. That scene, as well as Fuji's match against St. Rudolph, prove to me that Evil!Fuji could be just as canon as Manipulative!Fuji. ^_^
Anyway, please keep in mind that this story will get somewhat darker in the future. I hope you keep reading!
(Tentatively) In the Next Chapter:
- Captains' conference.
- Kirika's new enemy.
- Syusuke's assassin training.
- Yuuta's misfortunes.
- Echizen's observations.
Please, please review and/or send comments (however bad, good, long, or short) to me at rune_dreaming@yahoo.com! Your feedback is very much appreciated!
Copyright (C) 2003 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved.
Reviewers: I'm very grateful to everyone who reviewed and everyone who keeps reviewing. I really appreciate hearing your comments, and as I've said to a few of you before, I'm amazed that so many people actually gave this crossover a chance. Once again, thank you for reading!
Author's Notes:
I'm trying to keep the chapters short (for my standards, that is), but there's so much I want to write that the chapters keep getting longer. ^_^;; Oh well. I hope it's worth it. Enjoy!
~ Dark Rune
-= Level Four: Elevator Down =-
Echizen, whose senses had always been top-notch, was the first to hear something amiss. He stood, ignoring the rest of his teammates who were still arguing about whether or not Momoshiro did, in fact, lie to poor Kawamura about not having any aces in his hand. Of course, Oishi had to step in as the peacemaker, so he put off Echizen's alarming behavior until after he pried Momoshiro out of Kikumaru's choke hold.
After restraining the still-shouting Kikumaru, Oishi put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, and the shrill noise instantly silenced the other tennis players.
"Is something wrong, Echizen?" Oishi asked, releasing Kikumaru and rising to his feet. From their position on the floor, the rest of the regulars looked up at him, then at Echizen, bewildered.
"Do you hear that?" Echizen asked seriously, pulling his cap lower over his face.
Oishi frowned. Within a few seconds, the sound grew more audible, and fear struck the hearts of the tennis players as the animalistic shriek grew louder and louder; whatever was making the horrible noise was drawing near. Finally, when the scream was almost too loud to bear, the regulars scrambled to their feet.
"What *is* that?" Momoshiro whispered, his racket already in Dunk Smash position. No one needed to answer.
The locker room door swung open, slamming violently against the wall and causing the shelves to shudder and pieces of the ceiling tiles to rain on the startled tennis players.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" shrieked Kaidoh Kaoru, sweating, red-faced, and breathing heavily, as he burst into the room, his beady eyes wide and unmistakably full of fear.
"KAIDOH!?" the team shouted in unified disbelief as Kaidoh stumbled dazedly into their midst. He swayed for a moment, almost as if he was playing a tennis game, but he was shivering.
"F-F-F-F-F-F-..." he stammered, obviously numb with shock. He fell forward.
Oishi, being the alert and perpetually worried mother hen of the group, reacted first, catching Kaidoh before the younger man could hit the floor, and in the next instant, everyone had crowded around the traumatized Viper. Each tennis player was worried and secretly fearing what it was that had reduced the notoriously badass Kaidoh to a sputtering, white-faced mass of jelly.
"Oi, Snake," Momoshiro nudged his rival in the shoulder, looking more concerned than he had ever been in his life. "What's the matter with you?"
Kaidoh was quaking in Oishi's arms. "F-F-F-F-F-..."
"Give him some air," Oishi commanded as he laid Kaidoh down on the floor, and the other regulars practically leaped a half-step backwards at the captain's order. "Momoshiro, get some water."
"Hai," Momoshiro saluted, and he would have fetched the closest water bottle if Inui hadn't stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"No. This method will be 134% more effective in revitalizing an unfocused mind," Inui mumbled seriously, holding up a bottle with a familiar, foreboding piece of paper taped to it. "It instantaneously activates the human body's basest survival instincts."
Momoshiro grinned broadly. "I trust your data," he said with glee, and he accepted the bottle containing Inui's latest concoction. The other regulars gasped.
"S-s-surely you..." Kawamura stuttered. "You can't be serious..."
"We're trying to revive him, not kill him!" Kikumaru added worriedly.
Although Inui's juice was not a punishment he wished to inflict on anyone, Oishi decided it was necessary in Kaidoh's case. "Good thinking," Oishi praised, grabbing the bottle from Momoshiro, whose face fell when he realized he wouldn't be the one to poison his immobilized rival. Oishi took a deep breath and turned back to the fallen tennis player. "All right, Kaidoh. You'd better get up or face the consequences. This is Inui's Super Special Deluxe Juice Remix Mach 5--"
"Seven," coughed Inui.
"--Mach 7," Oishi corrected, chills running down his spine, "and if you don't get up on your own, I'm afraid you'll have to suffer."
Kaidoh remained frozen, wide eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Oishi cringed guiltily as he put the bottle to Kaidoh's lips, and everyone, except Inui, flinched and turned away, unable to witness the horrifying scene. Even Momoshiro looked queasy.
"Forgive me," Oishi murmured, closing his eyes. Around him, the other tennis regulars prayed silently to whatever deities they worshipped. Forcing someone innocent to drink Inui's vegetable juice was vile. It was unforgivable. It was detestable. And it worked like a charm.
As soon as the liquid flowed from the bottle, Kaidoh screamed horrifically again, but there was a reassuring measure of awareness in his eyes as he gasped for water. Kawamura, who had been prepared for Kaidoh's reaction, tossed the flailing man a bottle of water, and Kaidoh gratefully chugged its contents.
"You're going to be all right," Oishi said, sighing as he patted Kaidoh on the back. "Just drink, and take a deep breath, and tell us what happened."
Kaidoh carelessly flung the water bottle away, breathing hard and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then he looked up and hissed at Oishi.
"I've never heard anyone scream like that before," Momoshiro taunted half-heartedly. "You wanna tell us what happened, Viper?"
Kaidoh leaned forward, burying his beet-red face in his arms. "Iie."
Oishi sighed again. "It's all right if you don't want to talk about it now. We can discuss this after Fuji gets here."
"Iie!" Kaidoh repeated more fervently.
Oishi frowned, noticing that the back of Kaidoh's neck got even redder at the mention of Fuji's name. How odd...
"Kaidoh," Oishi began thoughtfully, "something happened to you while you were running, and I think it might have something to do with Fuji. Is that right?"
Kaidoh's face was practically glowing at this point, so it was obvious that Oishi's guess was on the mark.
"Will you tell us where he is, Kaidoh-senpai?" Echizen interrupted, and his laid-back self-confidence made his question sound more like an order than a request. "He's holding up practice."
"I..." Kaidoh swallowed hard. "I don't think Fuji-senpai will show up for practice today."
"Why not?" Oishi inquired.
"Because," Kaidoh spoke with difficulty, "I saw him in the woods."
"We'll just send one of the freshmen to get him, then," Kikumaru said cheerily, and he was about to leave when Kaidoh flew to his feet and grabbed Kikumaru by the collar, much to everyone's astonishment.
"IYAAA!!!" Kaidoh cried, jerking Kikumaru backwards by his shirt. "DON'T DO IT!!! They'll be TAINTED! For the love of all that is GOOD and HOLY, SPARE THE INNOCENTS!"
"Calm down!" Oishi pulled Kaidoh off his partner, and Kikumaru gasped for air as he leaned against a wall, trembling. "Kaidoh, what, exactly, did you see?"
"I... I saw nothing," Kaidoh answered, red-faced and shaking just as badly as Kikumaru, when Oishi let him go. "I just... heard..." He hesitated, swallowing hard again.
"Heard what?" everyone urged.
Kaidoh took a deep breath. "Fuji-senpai was with Yuumura-senpai, and they seemed to be... enjoying each other's company... in the woods. I didn't see anything, but... I heard them talking about... well..." Kaidoh blushed.
"About?" Echizen insisted, not noticing that everyone else had pretty much guessed what Kaidoh had stumbled upon, and that everyone else was promptly turning greenish red.
Kaidoh bravely tried to finish his tale in a rush. "They were talking about the size of his--"
"Don't SAY it! We get the point!" Oishi yelled abruptly, leading the others in a group tackle aimed to clamp Kaidoh's mouth shut. Unfortunately, Kaidoh, even though he was Kaidoh, crumpled under the weight of all the tennis players who had jumped him, making Oishi regret their rash actions. Everyone would be REALLY sore today, if the players' anguished groaning and contagious inability to move were any indication.
Echizen merely stood where he was, clueless, and he looked up at Inui, the only regular who had not sacrificed his dignity by tackling Kaidoh like a barbarian.
"They didn't let him finish his sentence," Echizen stated blandly. "What's with everyone today? So what if Fuji-senpai is talking to a girl?"
Inui was furiously scrawling some obscure notes and oddly misshapen diagrams in a book clearly marked 'Fuji's Indiscretions #1', but he spoke to Echizen mid-scribble anyway. "The chance of Fuji showing up to practice has just plummeted to a record low of 0.00002%. The likelihood that he will continue to come to practice this week has also reached a record low of 4.7%."
"What makes you think that?" Echizen asked, looking confused as to how anyone could miss tennis practice without a good reason--like paralysis or death. Inui merely stopped writing and fixed his ominous gaze at Echizen for a minute.
"What?" the vice-captain frowned, staring back at Inui.
"Knowing your father's fixation on women, a latent characteristic which you most likely inherited," Inui muttered, "if you get around to doing with Ryuzaki Sakuno what Fuji is doing with Yuumura, you would quit tennis for approximately 34 days."
"What are you talking about? I'm nothing like... like..." Echizen abruptly stiffened, his eyes widening in belated understanding. "I... I'm... I'm going out for some fresh air. I'll be back."
Then, after carefully stepping over the pile of his semi-conscious senpais, Echizen strode out of the locker room, blushing hotly.
After Inui untangled the mess of tennis players simply by unscrewing the cap off a bottle of Penal-Tea(TM), the team was so jumpy that Oishi could *feel* everyone's charged emotions cackling in the stale locker room air. It was an unfamiliar sensation, because except for the time everyone thought Tezuka might be dating someone (which turned out to be a horrible, horrible misunderstanding involving Fuji's sister, several parts of a fried chicken, and Inui's abysmal phone service), the team had never been so tense. Of course, the situation now was decidedly worse because Fuji seemed to be doing... unspeakable... things... with the new girl.
Oishi shook his head. It simply boggled the mind.
Normally, Oishi would not have intruded in anyone's personal business, but the mental state of the team was at stake. As the captain, Oishi was responsible for keeping everyone healthy, both physically and mentally, and the traumatizing image of a bad Fuji would be too much to handle.
What would Tezuka do? Oishi wondered. How could Seigaku possibly win Nationals now, knowing that their current number one singles player was... well...
"Still missing, huh?" Echizen's voice cut through the thick silence, and all the regulars sitting in the locker room looked up in surprise as the vice-captain returned. "Oishi-senpai, it's irresponsible to hold up practice just for one player. Regardless of who he is, the rest of the team can't afford to wait," Echizen stated coolly. "The non-regulars were just standing around outside so I made them run a hundred laps. Ryuzaki-sensei isn't here yet either so we really need to move. *Now*."
Sometimes, Echizen's uncanny likeness to Tezuka still blindsided Oishi. If he wanted Tezuka's opinion, he really never needed to look further than the youngest regular on the team. Oishi smiled ruefully. "Echizen... You're right. Fuji probably won't come to practice today, so there's no point in waiting." He turned back to the other regulars with newfound determination. "All right, everyone! Let's go."
Silence.
"Let's GO," Oishi repeated more firmly, and the regulars began to move, sluggishly, still in varying states of distress. As the tennis players trudged out of the locker room, Oishi hung back until he and Inui were the only ones remaining. "Please tell me you've got a plan," Oishi pleaded, when everyone was safely out of earshot.
Inui merely closed his latest notebook and hummed in his soothing baritone voice, "I'm afraid this situation has escalated far too quickly above my expectations. There is only one plan that we can put in motion."
Oishi gasped. "Y-you mean... but... do we *have* to? There must be some other way..."
"I'm afraid it has come down to this," Inui spoke, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose in a frighteningly calm manner. "We must implement Seigaku Tennis Club's Secret Contingency Plan Zeta: Code Orange."
Oishi swallowed hard, his spine tingling. "A videophone conference with Tezuka?"
"My house. Eight o'clock. Be there."
Oishi grimaced. But at the very least, it wasn't Code Red.
Yet.
"Well, I guess I'll have to miss tennis practice today," Syusuke said, smiling with his eyes closed.
Kirika shrugged. "Gomen. I know how much you wanted to play."
"It's no problem," he shook his head, offering his arm to support her as they started walking back towards the courts to retrieve their bags. "Properly treating your injury at home is more important than playing a game."
Clutching his upper left arm, Kirika limped forward at Syusuke's laid-back pace, but she avoided looking at his face. He obviously didn't mean what he said; she could tell that he would rather be playing tennis than babysitting her. "Gomen," she whispered again, wincing at the sharp pain lancing through her leg.
The only positive thing about killing Soldats assassins was that Soldats always cleaned up after themselves. In the time she'd been fighting them, Kirika had never needed to cover her deadly trail because Soldats took great pains to hide their existence from the general public. In a few hours, the assassins' dead bodies would probably be gone and the forest swept clean of all traces of the gunfight.
But their secrecy also made it difficult to track the Soldats leaders down. Kirika had never actually met any of them in person since her orders came through her computer. The Fuji family was the highest ranking family she knew in Soldats, and that was only because they had been her mission. The old men in power still remained nameless and faceless to her, so she wondered how much information Syusuke had been privy to before the Fuji family's rebellion.
In truth, the attacks today disturbed Kirika. She had expected Soldats to spy on Syusuke, of course, and she had expected Soldats to try to kill her long before she arrived at school, so the assassination attempts did not quite follow impeccable Soldats logic.
Could 'Nee-san have done something drastic in Kyoto already? Kirika wondered. Could Soldats have found the person who held the evidence the Fujis had against Soldats? Once the evidence-keeper was eliminated, Soldats would no longer need to keep their distance from Syusuke. Those were the only logical reasons for the attacks today; nothing else made sense because Syusuke had been safe from overt attacks before Kirika's arrival. Kirika's new relation to Syusuke, if anything, should have piqued Soldats' curiosity just as 'Nee-san had planned, instead of prompting such blatant attacks.
"You should give 'Nee-san a call when we get home," Kirika said, as the two of them walked next to the lake.
Syusuke smiled. "Of course. She owes me an explanation."
"I doubt she'll reveal her plans to you, but she might have a few theories of her own about what's going on here," Kirika murmured, stumbling when more pain shot through her leg like a lightning bolt, and she leaned against Syusuke as much as she dared.
He didn't seem to mind her dependence on him, but he didn't show concern for her predicament either. "You mean you're not entirely sure about what's going on?"
"These attacks feel strange," she replied honestly. "If assassins keep coming after today, Soldats must be truly worried about something other than the Fuji family. 'Nee-san has only been gone a day, so she couldn't possibly have breached their defenses so critically already."
"It's almost as if this wasn't Soldats' doing," Syusuke said lightly. "Perhaps a jealous female student hired some people to kill you, Kirika-chan."
Kirika glanced up at him, stunned. "Syusuke-kun..."
He brushed off her seriousness with a smile. "Anyway, wasn't that a lovely stroll, Yuumura-chan? I'm sorry you had to trip over that log. My negligence caused your injury."
"I... It's all right, Fuji-kun," she smiled weakly, hearing the change in his tone and understanding that they were close enough to the tennis courts to be overheard by a stray freshman. They would have to save this discussion for later; Syusuke looked as if he wished to avoid talking about Soldats altogether.
They found their belongings in the bushes where they had dropped them, and, without a word, Syusuke shouldered both their bags, surprising Kirika. She had forgotten how Syusuke liked performing random chivalrous acts like that. As they walked away from the courts, Syusuke dug into his bag and pulled out his cell phone, and Kirika didn't bother to ask who he was calling because his end of the conversation said it all.
"Hello," Syusuke began with perfected cheerfulness, "this is Fuji... Oh? You're still in your office? Well... Yes, practice started a half hour ago..."
Kirika looked away in disgust. Syusuke was so good at deceiving others that his lines flowed without thought. He really knew how to sell his lies: start with the appropriate level of surprise, inject the proper amount of false sympathy here, place a pause for maximum effect there, and top off the story with guilt-ridden apologies for flavoring. Next to swordplay, deception had been Syusuke's deadliest art, and it had been the true source of his strength in Soldats. Kirika remembered how he had tried to teach her to act, but she just couldn't understand the complexities of human behavior back then. She still didn't understand human nature now, but Syusuke had mastered his craft years ago.
"I don't know," Syusuke continued lying happily into his phone, oblivious to Kirika's discomfort. "Yuumura-chan sprained her ankle so I can't make it today... No... I'm taking her home right now... Is that... Yes. Thank you very much... I will... Goodbye."
When he hung up, Kirika bit her bottom lip as they walked out the high school gates. Syusuke's ability to lie honestly irritated her. She needed to trust him until the end of the mission, but it was difficult to have faith in an accomplished actor whose actions often contradicted his words. As uncomfortable as she was next to him, however, she had to lean on him. The Fuji mansion was only a few blocks from the school, so it would take them only a few minutes to get there, but those few minutes were torture on her injured leg.
As they walked in contemplative silence, Kirika felt Syusuke becoming tenser. Every few seconds, she looked up at him, forgetting her own pain out of curiosity as to why his smile grew more strained with each passing minute--almost as if he didn't want to go home.
He must be dreading walking home like this every day for three weeks, Kirika thought when they stopped at last in front of the Fuji residence. After all, the peace he'd enjoyed in the last five years would most certainly be ruined.
"I take it you've already moved your belongings into your old room," Syusuke said as he entered the code to open the mansion's gates.
Kirika blinked at him, surprised that he would want to make small talk. Limping up the driveway, she answered cautiously, "Yes, but I didn't bring much. You don't have to worry about cleaning up after I'm gone."
Syusuke shot her a strange look before he inserted the key into the front door and unlocked it. As soon as they entered the house and he shut the door, he dropped the bags on the carpeted floor, coldly unlatching Kirika from his arm as they slipped off their shoes. Wordlessly, he stormed towards the living room to pick up the cordless telephone receiver there. "Kirika-chan," he said, his back to her as he dialed, "you know where the first aid kit is. Go ahead and treat yourself. I need to talk to my sister."
Kirika nodded, wishing that he would at least turn and spare her a glance. She lingered in the doorway connecting the living room to the study, watching him and willing him to acknowledge her existence, but he remained still, facing away from her.
She felt absurdly hollow. As she went inside the study to get the first aid kit, she shook her head, furious at herself for expecting so much from him so early in this strange partnership. She really shouldn't have expected anything at all. Everything was an act with Syusuke, and no matter how kind he appeared to her sometimes, no matter what good deeds he performed for her, she couldn't afford to forget that he was always acting. Besides, even though she was giving her life to him, she shouldn't expect kindness or pity in return. When all was said and done, Syusuke was still a Fuji, and ruthlessness still flowed in his blood.
He was as unforgiving as he had ever been.
With the kit in her hands, Kirika sat in an armchair in the study, silently observing Syusuke's tense back while tearing opening the necessary medical supplies. Syusuke's voice was low, but its edge was razor sharp, his accusations and fury strongly directed at Yumiko. 'Nee-san seemed to be holding her ground in the discussion, however, judging from the way Syusuke's voice shook and intensified with ever-increasing impatience.
As she undid the bandages on her leg and replaced them with clean ones, Kirika realized that she missed Mireille very, very dearly. Perhaps Mireille had spoiled her with too much kindness over the past year, but Kirika had forgotten how difficult life was without a sympathetic soul to lean on. When Kirika was done patching herself up, she escaped upstairs to her room to change into casual clothing, and when she came back down, she ducked into the dining room to give Syusuke more privacy. Fifteen minutes later, his arguments ceased, and a tense minute after that, Syusuke finally strode into the dining room, noticeably red-faced and forcing a smile even as he removed his school uniform jacket.
"What did 'Nee-san say?" Kirika inquired, hesitantly meeting his gaze.
His smile was bitter. "Nothing you didn't already tell me."
"Did she expect the assassination attempts on you today and simply neglect to warn us?"
Syusuke's smile withered. "No. As you said, 'Nee-san believed spies would be sent after me, but she didn't expect Soldats to make the first move against us. She thinks something went wrong somewhere else, and Soldats might be panicking as a result."
Kirika frowned. Yumiko-nee's opinion was not something to be taken lightly. "Does she have any idea about what that 'something else' might be?
Syusuke sighed, folding his arms in front of Kirika, who was leaning against the spotless dining table. "She didn't know. But she wanted you to consider the possibility that someone else might be behind these attacks. It could be a more daring Soldats leader 'Nee-san didn't know about."
"That doesn't give us much to work with, does it?" Kirika said, worried. "What else did she tell you?"
"Absolutely nothing about Kyoto," he admitted. "I'm beginning to think that 'Nee-san is as gleefully sadistic towards me as I am towards Yuuta..."
Knowing Yumiko's manipulative tendencies, and knowing Syusuke's aversion to being manipulated, Kirika carefully refrained from agreeing with his statement.
"Speaking of Yuuta..." His cheerful mask returned when he glanced out the window. "Did you know he had a ridiculously huge crush on you, Kirika-chan?" he asked nonchalantly as he relaxed against the dining table next to her.
"Oh... he did?" Kirika stared, flushing. "But... what does that have to do with anything?"
Syusuke kept smiling as he turned to her. "Among other things, 'Nee-san manipulated Yuuta into visiting home today, telling him there was a surprise waiting."
"Really?" Kirika frowned, as Syusuke seemed to lean even closer to her. "When will he get here?"
Syusuke's smile widened. "Don't look, but he's already here. He's actually watching us just outside the window."
Pinned by his steely gaze, Kirika couldn't turn around. "Why don't we go greet him, then?" she suggested awkwardly, shifting to leave, but Syusuke quickly pivoted and stood in front of her, trapping her against the table. He leaned forward, his arms positioned on either side of her, his body scant centimeters away from hers and moving closer. She resisted the urge to break his neck, gripping the edge of the table with her hands to prevent them from doing any instinctive damage to her client. "What are you doing, Syusuke-kun?"
His eyes opened. From this distance, Kirika couldn't miss the mischief dancing in his cobalt gaze, but then she saw a spark of seriousness underneath his humor.
"Have you ever kissed anyone before, Kirika-chan?" he asked, his voice low and soothing, his tone trivial.
Her eyes widened. "E-excuse me?"
"I asked if you've ever kissed anyone before," he repeated patiently.
She found herself answering with the truth in spite of her embarrassment. "N-no."
"I haven't either," he confessed amiably. "We should practice then, don't you think?"
She froze. "What?"
"We should practice," he repeated, his voice laced with the kind of patronizing patience reserved for imbeciles. "Kissing, I mean."
Unable to find an intelligent response to convey her shock, Kirika uttered one word. "Why?"
"We're betrothed, and people are going to expect this kind of behavior from us," Syusuke explained, his smile becoming less kind and much more cruel. "We need to be convincing. We can't be caught off guard not knowing these things."
"But... I was..." Kirika stopped talking, realizing that she had no right to tell Syusuke anything. She couldn't tell him that she wanted to do this only with the right man, someone who could see into her soul and accept it completely, broken as it was, without disgust or fear or hatred. But what was the likelihood that she would find someone like that in the remaining weeks of her life?
Besides, her personal feelings had no business here. Syusuke was her employer. He owned her soul and would decide her fate, and he could do whatever he damn well pleased.
"For the good of the mission, let's see if we can convince Yuuta, ne?" Syusuke said happily, and with that, he leaned down and captured her lips brutally with his.
Losing herself in the kiss, Kirika managed not to cry.
Sixteen-year-old Fuji Yuuta scowled. It was his habit to scowl at anything and anyone family-related, because as far as he could remember, his family always seemed to enjoy making him suffer, especially his annoying older brother. Often, before his parents had died, Yuuta had felt out of place in his family, but while he had the distinct impression that everyone treated him differently, he wasn't entirely sure how. Syusuke and Yumiko had only changed their attitudes after the car accident that had claimed their parents' lives, and even then, they still treated him as if he were some sheltered baby.
Yuuta fumed. He was only younger than Syusuke by a year, so why the hell did they treat Syusuke with more respect?
It *had* to be that damned talent of his. Syusuke was just more talented, more dedicated, more studious, more polite, and pretty much better at every other damn thing, including school, including sports, including getting along with people, including... ugh.
Damn it all.
His freaky brother was *perfect*.
Yuuta scowled as he got off the bus only a few blocks from the house. 'Nee-san had dropped by St. Rudolph that morning and practically ordered him to visit Syusuke today, because she was leaving early for Kyoto and she thought Yuuta needed to spend quality time with his brother. Of course, quality time with ManipulativeBastard!Syusuke wouldn't have convinced Yuuta to go within a kilometer of the mansion, so 'Nee-san had mentioned something about a surprise. Eventually, Yuuta's curiosity won over his loathing of Syusuke, but Yuuta didn't plan to stay very long in the presence of the perfect prodigy. For all Yuuta cared, Syusuke could have the entire house to himself during the next three weeks and wreck it, as long as the older Fuji brother stayed the hell away from Yuuta.
Aniki's a lucky bastard though, Yuuta thought grudgingly. The dorms at St. Rudolph weren't tiny, but compared to the cavernous Fuji mansion, Yuuta's room at school was a coffin. He growled, shoving his hands in his pockets as he arrived at the house gates. Yuuta mechanically punched in the security code and went inside, all the while grumbling about the injustice that was his life, but he ground to a halt as he stood in the driveway. The windows were, strangely enough, open, and he could actually see into the dining room. What he saw lifted his spirits tremendously.
"Yuumura-san!" Yuuta cried, a happy smile spreading across his face when he spied the young woman's familiar face. About six years ago, Yuumura-san, the daughter of some family friends, had lived in the Fuji mansion as an exchange student from a junior high school in Kyoto. Yuuta had grown close to the shy girl, and Yuuta liked her a lot. As far as he could understand, she was only shy around him because she liked him back and was too modest to admit it in front of his family. At any rate, Yuumura-san was the only person close enough to be considered family whom Yuuta did not intensely dislike at some point in his lifetime, so, overjoyed, he rushed to open the front door, casting excited glances through the window.
Then something else happened.
Yuuta's smile vanished.
His older brother now entered the dining room, grinning as usual, and he leaned against the table next to Yuumura-san. For a few moments, Syusuke and Yuumura-san seemed to be talking seriously about something, which worried Yuuta beyond reason.
What the hell is going on? Yuuta thought, ignoring the front door completely in his fascination with the events unfolding in the dining room. Why isn't Aniki at tennis practice?
Yuumura-san looked as if she was about to move away, but then in the blink of an eye, Syusuke was in front of her, blocking her way out, standing much too close for Yuuta's peace of mind. Syusuke said something, and then he leaned forward... forward...
He was...
He...
"Aniki... you *bastard*!"
Yuuta's heart almost stopped, and his eyes widened in rage and in despair as Syusuke leaned down and kissed Yuumura-san. Yuuta clenched his fists, his face red, and he watched in horror as the kiss continued, showing no signs of ending any time soon. Unable to control himself, Yuuta finally flung open the front door and barged into the house with the chilling intent to kill.
That BASTARD! That annoying, smiling, manipulative BASTARD! Syusuke KNEW how much Yuuta liked Yumuura-san! Why did HE always get everything to go HIS way? Yuumura-san was YUUTA'S territory!
DAMN SYUSUKE!
HE WAS DOING IT ON PURPOSE! That stupid older brother of his was kissing Yuumura-san out of spite! Syusuke must have KNOWN he was visiting today, and he must have skipped tennis practice just so he could make his move on Yuumura-san first! He KNEW Yuumura-san was the love of Yuuta's life! HOW *DARE* HE!!!
Slamming the front door behind him, Yuuta stomped towards the dining room but froze in the doorway when he saw two faces staring at him in surprise.
"Yuuta!" Syusuke smiled at him, opening his eyes, but he didn't move from his obviously comfortable position draped over Yuumura-san. "I didn't know you were home."
"Yuuta-kun," Kirika greeted with a blush, and Yuuta's face fell, his hopes shattering in an instant.
No... She actually... she actually looked happy. Was she happy to be with his stupid aniki? What if... what if she actually liked him!?
All of Yuuta's hopes were dashed the moment Syusuke and Yuumura-san pulled further apart but kept their hands linked. He groaned inwardly; there was no more reason to doubt the legitimacy of their relationship if they were already at the hand-holding stage.
Damn his stupid brother...
"Y-Yuumura-san, welcome back," Yuuta greeted miserably, unclenching his fists, his shoulders drooping even as his brother and Yuumura-san both gave him hugs. He returned their embraces weakly.
"We have big news," Syusuke announced, his smile much more genuine than anything Yuuta could even imagine at this point.
"What is it?" Yuuta croaked, eyeing their linked hands with extreme disgust and discomfort. "Are you staying very long, Yuumura-san? I'd... I'd like to spend time with you... I can move back here and commute to St. Rudolph..."
Yuumura-san's serene gaze bestowed upon his own unworthy face nearly made Yuuta melt with bitter joy. "I think it would be best if Syusuke-kun explains the situation," Yuumura-san said in her soft, gentle voice.
"And that is?" Yuuta smiled at her, then glowered at his older brother, then directed his affection back at her again. Hopefully she would notice his undying love for her and dump his stupid brother. Hopefully.
"We're engaged," grinned Syusuke, pulling the blushing Yuumura-san easily into a warm hug.
Kill me. Kill me now, Yuuta thought, horrified.
For a full minute, Yuuta stared dumbly at his older brother and the beloved Yuumura-san, his jaw hanging open and his eyes glazed with grief. It wasn't that he wanted to appear stupid in front of the girl of his dreams; it was just that most activity in his brain had ceased.
Neither Syusuke nor Yuumura-san feigned surprise when Yuuta finally passed out.
"He's gotten heavy," Syusuke commented, carelessly dumping Yuuta's unconscious form on the longest couch.
Kirika watched her 'fiance' with an emotionless expression. "He's taller than you now," she observed.
Syusuke beamed. "Yes, he is, isn't he? But only by a few centimeters. I'm not *that* short."
Kirika folded her arms across her chest, trying not to let Syusuke know how shaken she was from the show they had put on for Yuuta. Syusuke's revenge against her was cruel. He knew her well enough to understand how relationships mattered to her, how sacred and fleeting displays of emotion were to her. He knew her well enough to defile the things she deemed most precious.
He made her sick.
"I'm surprised at how well our act worked," Syusuke grinned, shooting her a pleased look that was nowhere near genuine. "Yuuta's a bit gullible, though, so I think we need to practice even more in order to deceive truly observant people like Inui, ne, Kirika-chan?"
She shrugged, turning away from him and staring out the window.
"Kirika-chan, I asked you a question," he stated in a level tone, but she could hear his smile, and it clashed with the coldness of his words. "Answer me."
"Yes," she replied dutifully, her fingers digging into her upper arms with a viciousness she wished she could direct at Syusuke. "I think I'll go outside for a while."
"Yuuta will probably be asleep for a while, so go ahead," Syusuke said, sitting comfortably on an armchair adjacent to the couch, and Kirika glared at him before stalking out the door.
She knew she shouldn't wander off the premises because her client and his brother would be vulnerable if she strayed too far, but she desperately needed to get away. Kirika justified her leaving the house by looking around for suspicious people on the street. She always vented her frustrations by making herself useful, whether it was through painting or protecting someone, and this was as good an opportunity as any.
Kirika walked quietly down the driveway and stopped next to the front gates, where she leaned casually against the wall and glanced outside over her shoulder. From her vantage point just within the mansion walls, there was virtually no one in sight, but Soldats assassins knew better than to hang around in broad daylight. They would be hiding in the trees, or somewhere concealed high above the ground, in places where people wouldn't normally look. Kirika frowned when she spotted a black sedan parked a short distance away across the street, containing what appeared to be two people deep in conversation.
Surely they can't be Soldats, Kirika thought before stepping away from the gates, slipping into the shadows offered by the trees. She needed to find out who those men were, fast. Her decision made, Kirika took off running swiftly along the mansion's perimeter, one hand against the stone wall surrounding the residence to steady herself.
Perhaps those men were Yuuta's bodyguards. Although they seemed careless sitting out in the open, they certainly looked the part.
As soon as she judged she was a safe distance from the car, Kirika scaled the wall next to a tree and perched herself on a low branch extending over the wall. She reached for her gun tucked into the back of her jeans, all the while observing the car from behind. Those men were really far too obvious to be professional, but their car, which was known to be used often by Soldats, drew suspicion, especially parked so close to the Fuji residence.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, she thought. Maybe I'm too worked up over what Syusuke did.
Kirika flushed at the memory. At this point, she didn't know what to think. When she'd accepted the mission, she had expected to put up an act, but she didn't think they'd go as far as kissing--not that Syusuke was a bad kisser or anything.
Kirika's face grew even warmer. Of course, how would she know anything about that? How could *he*?
The powerful urge to just strangle Syusuke returned, and she shook her head. Thinking about killing her current employer really wasn't helping. As the minutes passed, Kirika grew impatient and fidgety, and her uncomfortable feelings about Syusuke increased her annoyance even more. She had a bad feeling about the car, and usually her hunches proved correct. Unfortunately, in one unexpected move, Syusuke had pounded her confidence into the ground, made her question her judgments. How could she protect him if he pulled any more embarrassing stunts like that?
Kirika was about to go for a closer look at the car when she saw Syusuke emerge from the house, a smile on his face as he strolled down the path to the front gates. Kirika automatically ducked back amongst the leaves. He had changed into casual clothes, and with his hands shoved into his pockets, Syusuke ambled on outside, heading leisurely towards the parked car. Even from that distance, however, Kirika noticed the strain in his smile; he was definitely not out for fun. In fact...
Kirika's eyes widened when she spotted the unnatural bulge under Syusuke's shirt.
A weapon?
Her heart now racing, Kirika leaped down from the tree and dashed towards the gate, completely ignoring the injury she was aggravating in her leg. She had to stop Syusuke. He wasn't ready for a fight, and if those men in the car were assassins, they would have teammates in the surrounding area. Syusuke *knew* that basic rule. What was wrong with him? Those men in the car could run over him, and that would be just the accident Soldats was looking for to get rid of the Fuji threat forever.
Kirika tried not to panic when she reached the front gates and ran out on the sidewalk. Syusuke was crossing the street now, coming much too close to the car for Kirika's comfort.
She had to stop him. If she had to make herself a target, then so be it.
"Syusuke-kun!" she shouted, in a tone that she hoped sounded sort of like a wife sweetly calling out to her husband.
Standing in the middle of the quiet street, Syusuke turned, surprise and something disconcertingly close to anger in his features. "Kirika-chan," he responded with a rehearsed smile. "Is something wrong?"
"Will you help me with something in the kitchen?" she asked innocently, yet even as she spoke, she was frantically scanning the area for possible hiding places for more assassins. Syusuke wouldn't know what hit him if the assassins were ordered to ignore the Fuji will and start shooting. Kirika paled when she saw the two men in the car staring at Syusuke strangely.
Syusuke started walking back, and although he was smiling, his open eyes held contrasting emotions. "Kirika-chan," he said softly, just as he reached her side. His hand gripped her upper arm in a swift move that caught Kirika off guard, eliciting a pained gasp from her. His smile showed no remorse. "What do you think you're doing out--"
Syusuke never finished his sentence.
In the next instant, the car exploded.
-= End Chapter Four =-
Chapter Started: August 3, 2003
Chapter Finished: September 2, 2003
About the Dark Side:
Fuji's defining moment for me [minor spoilers ahead] was in the practice episode in which Inui decided that the last to cross the finish line would drink his Super Deluxe Whatever Juice. As the regulars raced around the courts, someone (Kikumaru?) pointed out that if Fuji liked Inui's special mix, why was he trying so hard? To this, Fuji replied, "I like to see people suffer even more."
After my mad-happy screaming like a deluded fangirl, my brain latched on to the potential of Fuji's dark side. That scene, as well as Fuji's match against St. Rudolph, prove to me that Evil!Fuji could be just as canon as Manipulative!Fuji. ^_^
Anyway, please keep in mind that this story will get somewhat darker in the future. I hope you keep reading!
(Tentatively) In the Next Chapter:
- Captains' conference.
- Kirika's new enemy.
- Syusuke's assassin training.
- Yuuta's misfortunes.
- Echizen's observations.
Please, please review and/or send comments (however bad, good, long, or short) to me at rune_dreaming@yahoo.com! Your feedback is very much appreciated!
Copyright (C) 2003 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved.